Nov. 6 (UPI) — One of two prisoners mistakenly released from London’s Wandsworth Prison turned himself in Thursday after three days at large, authorities said.
Surrey Police said in a statement that it was canceling its appeal for information to help recapture 35-year-old William Smith because he had returned to His Majesty’s Prison Wandsworth in South London of his own volition.
The force was leading the manhunt, rather than London’s Met, because of Smith’s connections to the county of Surrey, which lies to the south of the capital.
Smith was set free in error on Monday after Croydon Crown Court sentenced him to 45 months in prison for fraud offenses but instead of keeping him in custody, the prison discharged him after a court clerical blunder resulted in the prison being notified he had been given a suspended sentence.
However, the Met was still hunting for 24-year-old Algerian sex offender Ibrahim Kaddour-Cherif, who has been on the run since being released from HMP Wandsworth on Oct. 29.
Questions were raised in Parliament on Wednesday after it was revealed the problem-plagued prison did not realise its mistake for six days.
The Met has complained that Kaddour-Cherif’s head start was causing headaches for their search operation because he could be anywhere after such a long period.
Kaddour-Cherif was detained in September for breaching the terms of an 18-month community order for an indecent exposure conviction in 2024, the Met said.
He was also facing deportation for overstaying his visa after entering the country legally in 2019.
The accidental releases on the heels of the wrongful release of an Ethiopian asylum seeker, Hadush Kebatu, who was serving a sentence for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman.
Kebatu was set free from Chelmsford Prison on Oct. 24 instead of being transferred to an immigration removal center, pending deportation.
He remained free for 48 hours before being rearrested in a London park and flown back to Ethiopia on Oct. 29.
The BBC said sources had told it that the governor of Wandsworth Prison was not on site on the day Kaddour-Cherif was released because he was leading the investigation in the Kebatu debacle.
Justice Secretary David Lammy was asked by the Conservative opposition in the House of Commons on Wednesday whether any more asylum seekers had been accidentally released since Kebatu.
Lammy who was deputizing for Prime Minister Keir Starmer who is out of the country, declined to answer repeatedly. He later also refused to answer when questioned by Shadow Defense Secretary James Cartlidge about another migrant prisoner [referring to Smith] who he said had been released.
It was later revealed Lammy had been informed about Khaddour-Cherif overnight.
Technically, he had not misled or withheld information from parliament because Smith is British born and Kaddour-Cherif is not an asylum seeker.
In a statement, Lammy promised a top priority manhunt, saying he was “outraged and appalled by the foreign criminal wanted by the police.”
In a second statement Wednesday night, Lammy explained that he had not been able to answer in parliament because he had not been accurately briefed with key details at that time and did not want to give MPs wrong information.
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick, described it as a “complete and utter shambles,” and accused Lammy of a dereliction of duty.
“It took six days for the prison service supposedly to even become aware this has happened” and inform the police, Jenrick says, “who are now a week behind in the manhunt to find him.”
Jenrick acknowledged prisoners had been mistakenly freed under the previous Conservative administration but said the problem had gotten much worse since the Labour government came into office.
Government figures show the number of accidental releases more doubled in the year to March to 26, from 115 in 2023-2024, with Wandsworth and Chelmsford among prisons responsible for releasing more than 1,000 prisoners by mistake since 2011-2012.
Recent prison service data ranked Wandsworth the second most overcrowded prison in England and Wales, with more than 80% of prisoners held in overcrowded conditions. More than half of prisoners at Chelmsford were also in overcrowded conditions.
Prisoners have also found ways to get out of Wandsworth Prison of their own accord.
In September 2023, former British soldier Daniel Khalife escaped using bed sheets to strap himself beneath a food delivery vehicle while on remand at the prison on charges of spying for Iran.
